Chapter 5 - The Night Our Daughter Chose to Arrive
By the time we reached the hospital, my contractions were six minutes apart.
I had spent months imagining labor.
Roman beside me.
His hand around mine.
A carefully packed overnight bag.
A playlist I'd made and never shown him.
Margaret had teased me because half the songs were terrible.
I imagined Roman pretending not to be nervous.
I imagined him kissing my forehead.
I imagined our daughter being placed against my chest while her father cried for the first time in his adult life.
None of that happened.
Instead, Margaret abandoned her car at the emergency entrance while a nurse wheeled me through automatic doors beneath fluorescent lights.
"Thirty-seven weeks," Margaret told them. "Water broke approximately twelve minutes ago."
The nurse looked at me.
"First baby?"
"Yes."
"Any complications during pregnancy?"
"No."
"Bleeding?"
"No."
"Pain from one to ten?"
Another contraction arrived.
I gripped the wheelchair.
"Twelve."
The nurse smiled.
"That means we're getting somewhere."
I hated her.
Twenty minutes later, I was in labor and delivery wearing a hospital gown while monitors tracked the baby's heartbeat.
The sound filled the room.
Fast.
Steady.
Alive.
I started crying.
The nurse, Danielle, adjusted the monitor.
"Baby sounds good."
"Are you sure?"
"Very."
"She's early."
"She's technically early term, but thirty-seven weeks is reassuring. Your doctor is on the way."
Margaret stood beside me holding my phone.
It had rung continuously.
She finally said what both of us were avoiding.
"You need to decide about Roman."
I closed my eyes.
"I know."
"If something happened—"
"Don't."
"Nothing is going to happen."
"You don't know that."
"No. But neither do you."
She sat beside me.
"Being angry at him doesn't make him less her father."
"I know."
"And telling him doesn't mean you have to forgive him."
"I know."
I hated how much I knew.
Another contraction came.
When it passed, I held out my hand.
"Give me the phone."
Roman answered before the first ring finished.
"Savannah?"
"I'm at the hospital."
Silence.
Then chaos.
"What happened? Are you hurt? Is the baby—"
"I'm in labor."
Another silence.
This one felt enormous.
"Where?"
I told him.
He said, "I'm coming."
"Roman."
"I'm already moving."
"Roman, listen."
"What?"
"You can come to the hospital."
He exhaled.
"But you're not coming into the delivery room."
Nothing.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes."
"I mean it."
"Savannah, that's my daughter."
"I know."
"I should be there."
"You should have been there yesterday."
The words hurt both of us.
I could hear it.
He didn't argue.
That surprised me more than if he'd shouted.
"All right," he said.
"All right?"
"I'll wait outside."
I looked at Margaret.
She nodded slightly.
"Thank you."
Roman's voice broke on the next sentence.
"Tell her I'm coming."
My throat tightened.
"She can't hear you."
"She hears you."
That was something he'd read in one of the pregnancy books.
A book I thought he'd ignored.
I ended the call.
Roman made the drive in twenty-eight minutes.
I know because he later admitted he had never been more terrified in his life.
His driver stayed behind.
Roman drove himself.
A Chicago police officer stopped him three blocks from the hospital.
Roman rolled down the window.
"My wife is in labor."
The officer looked at his license.
"Mr. Carter, you're doing sixty-two in a thirty."
"I understand."
"Then you understand why—"
Roman apparently handed him the keys.
"Keep the car."
"What?"
"The hospital is three blocks."
Then he ran.
That part sounded ridiculous when Margaret told me.
I didn't believe it until the officer returned Roman's keys two hours later.
By then, I was seven centimeters dilated.
The epidural had helped.
My doctor, Dr. Patel, told me everything was progressing normally.
Roman waited in the hallway.
He did exactly what I asked.
At one point, Danielle came inside.
"There's a man outside who looks like he owns the hospital."
Margaret laughed.
"Unfortunately, he probably owns part of the building."
I didn't.
"Is he causing trouble?"
"No."
"Demanding anything?"
"No."
"Are you sure you're talking about Roman?"
Danielle grinned.
"He asked if he could send food in."
I stared.
"Food?"
"For your friend."
Margaret looked offended.
"I have a name."
"He knows. He said Margaret refuses to eat when she's worried."
That silenced her.
Roman knew her too.
Of course he did.
People are complicated that way.
Someone can fail you terribly and still remember how you take your coffee.
I wished it were simpler.
At 2:13 a.m., labor became serious.
There was no space left in me for betrayal.
Only pain.
Breathing.
Fear.
My daughter's heartbeat.
Dr. Patel told me it was time.
I squeezed Margaret's hand so hard she swore I damaged two fingers.
"I can't."
"Yes, you can."
"I can't."
"Your mother said exactly the same thing when she had you."
I looked at her.
"You were there?"
"Oh, yes."
"You never told me."
"Push first. Family history later."
I laughed and cried at the same time.
Outside the room, Roman heard me scream.
Later, he told me that sound nearly destroyed him.
He stood up.
A nurse stopped him.
"Sir."
"Is she okay?"
"We'll tell you when we know something."
"I need—"
"Sir."
Roman sat back down.
For perhaps the first time in his life, there was no phone call he could make.
No person he could pressure.
No check he could write.
He could only wait.
At 2:46 a.m., my daughter entered the world furious.
She screamed before Dr. Patel fully lifted her.
I sobbed.
"She's okay?"
"She's beautiful."
"Is she okay?"
"She's perfect."
They placed her on my chest.
Everything stopped.
She was warm and slippery and impossibly small.
Dark hair stuck to her head.
Her tiny mouth opened in outrage.
I touched her cheek.
"Hi."
One word.
That was all I could manage.
"Hi, baby."
She calmed at the sound of my voice.
Margaret cried openly.
The nurses worked around us.
I counted fingers.
Ten.
Toes.
Ten.
I had never understood love could arrive so violently.
Then Danielle asked quietly, "Does Dad know the name?"
I froze.
Roman and I had debated names for months.
He liked traditional family names.
I didn't.
We had eventually agreed on one.
Evelyn Grace.
Evelyn after my mother.
Grace because Roman said our daughter should have something neither of us deserved but everyone needed.
At the time, I had rolled my eyes.
Now the name hurt.
"Her name is Evelyn Grace Carter," I whispered.
I couldn't take her father from her because he'd hurt me.
That was a line I promised myself not to cross.
Danielle smiled.
"Evelyn."
Margaret touched her tiny hand.
"Your grandmother would have loved that."
After the delivery, I was exhausted.
But I couldn't sleep.
Evelyn lay against me beneath a blanket.
Roman was still outside.
I knew without asking.
Finally I said, "Margaret."
"Yes?"
"Bring him in."
She studied me.
"Are you sure?"
"For five minutes."
Margaret left.
When Roman entered, I almost didn't recognize him.
No suit jacket.
Tie gone.
Hair disordered.
Snow had melted into dark patches on his coat.
His face looked gray.
He stopped three steps inside the room.
His eyes found me.
Then Evelyn.
Everything in him changed.
Roman had always filled rooms.
That night, he seemed afraid to take up space.
"She's here," I said.
His throat moved.
"I can see that."
I almost smiled.
He stepped closer.
"Is she okay?"
"Yes."
"And you?"
"Yes."
His eyes closed for half a second.
"Thank God."
I looked down at Evelyn.
"Do you want to meet her?"
Roman stared at me.
"Can I?"
The question nearly broke me.
Not because it erased anything.
Because it was the first time in years I remembered him asking instead of assuming.
I nodded.
He washed his hands.
Then approached.
I transferred Evelyn into his arms.
Roman Carter had negotiated billion-dollar deals without trembling.
He trembled holding a seven-pound baby.
"Support her head," I whispered.
"I am."
"More."
"I'm trying."
"Relax."
"I can't."
A laugh escaped me.
Roman looked at our daughter.
His eyes turned red.
"Hi."
Evelyn yawned.
He let out a broken sound.
"That's rude. I drove very fast."
I watched him.
This was the man I'd loved.
Maybe still loved.
That was the cruelest part.
Love doesn't always disappear when trust does.
Sometimes it remains, trapped inside the wreckage.
Roman bent his head.
"Hi, Evie."
My chest tightened.
We'd never discussed the nickname.
It simply appeared.
Evelyn opened her eyes.
Roman stopped breathing.
Then a tear moved down his cheek.
One.
Only one.
He didn't wipe it away.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
I didn't know whether he meant to me or her.
Maybe both.
I let him hold her for five minutes.
Then ten.
Finally I said, "Roman."
He understood.
He gave her back immediately.
No argument.
At the door, he looked at me.
"Can I come tomorrow?"
"To see Evelyn?"
"Yes."
I hesitated.
"Yes."
His eyes shifted to me.
"And you?"
"I don't know."
He nodded.
Then he left.
I thought the hardest part was over.
I was wrong.
At seven in the morning, while Evelyn slept beside me, Elena arrived.
She didn't look like an attorney coming to congratulate a new mother.
She looked like someone carrying bad news.
"What's wrong?"
Elena closed the hospital room door.
"Roman's lawyers contacted my office."
My stomach dropped.
"What does he want?"
"It's not what you think."
"I've heard that sentence enough."
She handed me a document.
"It concerns Evelyn."
I stared at the page.
My daughter's name had already been typed into a legal filing.
"What is this?"
"Roman didn't file it."
"Then who did?"
Elena's expression hardened.
"Claire Bennett."
For a second, I thought I had misheard her.
"Claire filed something about my baby?"
"No."
Elena turned to the second page.
"She filed a sworn statement last night."
"About what?"
"Roman."
I looked down.
The first line made my blood run cold.
I, Claire Bennett, declare that Roman Carter made material representations regarding the dissolution of his marriage and the future transfer of certain Carter Holdings assets...
I looked up.
"Why would she do this?"
Elena took a breath.
"Because apparently Roman ended things with her after he discovered you were gone."
"And?"
"Claire decided if she couldn't have him, she was going to make sure he lost something too."
I looked at my sleeping daughter.
"What?"
Elena's answer came quietly.
"His company."
And before I could even decide whether that mattered to me anymore, Elena added:
May you like
"Unfortunately, eleven percent of that company belongs to you."
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